


Stars and Leaves

by wednesday



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 17:46:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13686660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/pseuds/wednesday
Summary: On the edge of the Greenwood Legolas meets an old friend and considers change.





	Stars and Leaves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rodo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodo/gifts).



Where the rustle of leaves once whispered his name in the stillness of the green twilight, now he hears no more words, as if he were a stranger walking under the leaves of his youth. Instead the wind carries the faint song of the waves from the west and louder even that that, Legolas is called Eastward. The woods, the endless trees of his home are dark and lovely still, and even as he missed them with all his being in his travels in far lands, his heart now calls him away, away to the shadow of the mountain in the East and the North.

It was a foolish hope perhaps, that made him think his father would welcome a dwarf in his halls and more foolish yet that he would welcome the fondness between said dwarf and his son.

Legolas was left with no path forward, as even their friendship his father dismissed as a folly of youth and too much time spent among men, clearly expecting Legolas to never bring it up again in his halls. And so here Legolas is, almost but not quite at the edge of the woods, tracking what he’s certain is a small band of orcs. He’s very pointedly not in his father’s halls, though it feels like an even fainter rebellion now than it did when he set out.

Someone might remark on the prince disappearing into the forest so soon after his return from a most glorious battle, but it will be of no consequence.

The thought of slaying the orcs that have dared enter the forest does lift his spirits.

As it happens, such is not his fate, for as he overtakes them at the edge of the woods, someone else leaps into their midst, silver blades flashing in the setting sun. Only two of Legolas’ arrows find their mark before the fight is done. ‘Tis a good deed done, yet he feels like his own knives have been left wanting.

“Legolas! I had not thought to see you here,” calls his ally with deep surprise, and only then does he recognize her.

“Tauriel! Where have you been?” For certainly he’d expected her to greet him back, before anyone else. Only later had he considered she might not have sought return to the Greenwood. Or worse yet, that father might not have granted it.

Tauriel looks strangely at him for a moment, but then smiles as she wipes the black blood from her blades. “Alas, time has not improved your manner, my prince,” she says, and Legolas will not suffer to be called prince here in the wilderness, by his oldest friend. He strides toward her and embraces her tightly in the manner of men and dwarves and, it seems, all the peoples other than elves.

“I am glad to see you again, my friend,” he whispers in her hair, and she too holds on to him with the strength of years gone by apart.

 

Later, when they’ve set a pyre for the orcs, they make a camp under the eaves of the forest in silence, for she cannot enter and he isn’t free to leave, not yet. Later still, when they sit by a merry fire, she tells him where she’s been, how far her travels have taken her and yet always brought her back. To the forest or the mountain, he knows not.

“I came here on behest of king Bard, for even with the battles won, not all the orcs were slain, and now the ones that escaped wander dangerously close to the lands of men.”

Legolas must look very startled indeed, for Tauriel bursts out in laughter.

“King Bard the second, great grandson of the Bowman, Legolas. You must not keep much with the news from the lands of men,” she says with laughter still in her eyes.

“Not those of the East,” he admits, “nor in truth any, before I had great cause to.” It feels now like a failing, as certainly he could have learned much of that outside the forest, but he only did so as absolutely needed. He might have heard of some deed of hers much sooner, or found some way to see her before. Before he was changed by many fates and turned away from all things once familiar. Though Tauriel too is much changed, he knows, but she seems more familiar than all else in the whole of Greenwood.

“I could speak to father when I return,” he starts, but loses the rest of his words, for he does not know what he could say or if he should.

Tauriel smiles at him, not even very sadly, and shakes her head.

“I do not think the king would take more kindly to such a request, if it were to come from you,” she says. Then with some amusement unknown to him, “In fact, he might take to it rather more poorly, if _you_ plead for my return. Did you know-” she starts with a spark of mischief in her eyes, and Legolas hates _already_ whatever words are to come out of her mouth.

“-that he once forbid me to court you?” Legolas flushes, even now when there is no more reason for him to ever flush in her presence.

“No, tis the truth! I came only for leave to hunt _yrch_ , and he made speech on the subject, most of all on how I were not good enough a match for you,” she finishes her tale. Legolas tries his best to not look flustered, but she knows him too well for any such deception to work.

Once he might have been angered to know his father had done so. He is unhappy still, but more on Tauriel’s behalf, for she has never had any such ambition that he knows of, and did not deserve Thranduil’s suspicion, nor his disrespect. Nor banishment, in his opinion, but he has long known no king is without fault.

“Ah, that I had know, no doubt I would have tried to defend your honor,” he admits, for he certainly would have. He might do such a thing still, for his temper has cooled not so much as might be wise.

“I know,” says Tauriel, breaks a cut of man-made bread in half and hands him one of the pieces. They eat and it may be no _lembas_ , but it fills him with strange gladness, to be eating it now, with Tauriel again at his side.

“You might defend _someone’s_ honor yet, for I do not think your father thinks much more favorably of any other maid in the forest, and might be warning them away even now,” says Tauriel, and feigns worry in a most unconvincing manner.

“Ha! I know you enough to know it no concern. You only lament you will not witness the argument yourself!” he says, and it makes Tauriel laugh again, and only a moment later himself.

They sit in silence afterwards, looking at the stars, undimmed by the darkness that sought to swallow Arda, and listen to their songs, most beautiful even to those born so late, so near to the age of men.

Only when Tauriel makes some noise, does he realize hours have passed and he’s long since turned away from the stars and has been looking instead Eastward yet again.

“Legolas?” she asks quietly; she must not understand what sadness has befallen him in these bright days of the new age, free of the shadow for the first time.

“It is a strange fate, that I should meet you now,” Legolas says, for it has been on his mind ever since he recognized his friend, so long unseen. Tauriel says not a word, and so he continues, half whispering the truth he cannot set aside, “that-- That I should meet you now, when I understand what I did not before.” He looks to the East still, the faint light of dawn casting a long shadow from the mountain toward the forest, like a hand reaching for that of another.

“Oh,” she only says, and reaches for his hand instead, and they lean closer together and watch the new day rise.

Legolas holds on to his oldest friend and knows that he too will leave the forest, and long before the sea calls him forever West. Even as the trees whisper once again both their names, he thinks perhaps this new day dawning he will follow Tauriel to her home in a city of men, and one day soon he will go yet further.

 

 


End file.
